Re: [dm-crypt] Cannot wipe header on device

["Luís de Sousa" <luis.a.de.sousa@gmail.com>]

Hi again Hugh,

What is "Michael's test"? I'll be happy to do it if I possibly can.

I do not have an alternative cable, the male plug connecting to the
drive chassis is something I never seen elsewhere, possibly
proprietary.

Thanks once more,

Luís

On 10 December 2015 at 18:37, H McCurdy <hmccurdy@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi Luis,
>
> If the drive has its own power, it probably isn't lack of power. I would try
> Michael's suggestion so that we can get more data points.
>
> An inexpensive thing to try (assuming error code 5 is an errno error, which
> I think it would be), is a different USB cable.  I broke one of my USB
> cables just last week.  It looked fine but it isn't fine.  It worked some of
> the time and didn't work some of the time.  It's in the garbage now after
> being replaced with a reliable cable.  Even so, please try Michael's test
> and share the results.
>
> Hugh
>
>
>
> On Thursday, December 10, 2015 12:24 PM, Luís de Sousa
> <luis.a.de.sousa@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Thank you for the reply.
>
> I connected the external drive directly to my laptop and removed every
> other stuff connected through USB. I tried again the initialisation
> but I always get this same error.
>
> This external drive is itself powered (with power brick and all). Is
> there anything else I could try to identify the cause of this?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Luís
>
>
> On 10 December 2015 at 17:49, H McCurdy <hmccurdy@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Hi Luis,
>>
>> Error 5 is EIO or I/O error.  My first thought was if you are using USB
>> 2.0
>> because those sometimes have power problems (that would explain an I/O
>> error).  Then I looked at your log and it appears you are using 2.0.
>>
>> If I'm right, I suggest disconnecting every USB device that you don't
>> absolutely need and trying again.  (The drive did pass a previous
>> diagnostic
>> test telling us that it was working.)  If that solves the problem, I
>> suggest
>> using a USB 3 drive or using a **powered** USB hub.
>>
>> Hugh
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, December 10, 2015 8:20 AM, Luís de Sousa
>> <luis.a.de.sousa@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi everybody,
>>
>> I am trying to encrypt an external hard drive on Ubuntu 14.04
>> following this guide [1]. I have previously ran badblocks, which
>> returned zero errors; I am also sure the disk is not mounted:
>>
>> $ findmnt /dev/sdb
>> $ findmnt /dev/sdb1
>> $
>>
>> Whenever I try the initialisation with cryptsetup I get this same error:
>>
>> $ sudo cryptsetup -y -v luksFormat /dev/sdb1
>>
>> WARNING!
>> ========
>> This will overwrite data on /dev/sdb1 irrevocably.
>>
>> Are you sure? (Type uppercase yes): YES
>> Enter passphrase:
>> Verify passphrase:
>> Cannot wipe header on device /dev/sdb1.
>> Command failed with code 5: Cannot wipe header on device /dev/sdb1.
>>
>> dmesg is not reporting anything out of the ordinary:
>>
>> $ dmesg
>> [ 3208.032228] usb 2-1.4: new high-speed USB device number 7 using
>> ehci-pci
>> [ 3208.140990] usb 2-1.4: New USB device found, idVendor=059f,
>> idProduct=0651
>> [ 3208.141001] usb 2-1.4: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2,
>> SerialNumber=3
>> [ 3208.141024] usb 2-1.4: Product: LaCie Hard Drive USB
>> [ 3208.141031] usb 2-1.4: Manufacturer: LaCie
>> [ 3208.141037] usb 2-1.4: SerialNumber: 10000E000BD8A671
>> [ 3208.177576] usb-storage 2-1.4:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
>> [ 3208.178112] scsi4 : usb-storage 2-1.4:1.0
>> [ 3208.178183] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
>> [ 3209.176917] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access    SEAGATE  ST3160812A
>>  3.AA PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
>> [ 3209.177561] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
>> [ 3209.181342] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 312581808 512-byte logical blocks:
>> (160 GB/149 GiB)
>> [ 3209.182337] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
>> [ 3209.182348] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 53 00 00 08
>> [ 3209.183339] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache:
>> enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
>> [ 3209.201618]  sdb: sdb1
>> [ 3209.229465] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
>>
>> In the log a strange message is reporting something with block 0:
>>
>> $ tail /var/log/syslog
>> Dec  8 09:18:20 MekanikDestruktiwKommandoh kernel: [ 3698.016311]
>> end_request: critical target error, dev sdb, sector 0
>> Dec  8 09:18:28 MekanikDestruktiwKommandoh wpa_supplicant[1188]:
>> wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
>>
>> Any ideas on what may be going wrong here? Thank you,
>>
>> Luís
>>
>>
>> [1]
>>
>> http://www.cyberciti.biz/hardware/howto-linux-hard-disk-encryption-with-luks-cryptsetup-command/
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>
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